Will somebody please help Me!!!!!

[handOFfate]

I'm creating my own library and i'm going to start a comics and graphic novels section. I don't own any comics and I don't keep up with them so I don't know where to start. I want to collect the graphic novels that were the most shocking, popular, and/or influential, about 10-20 books. People have told me that Watchmen, Kingdom Come, and Dark Night Returns are musts, but I have no idea what else to get. Can somebody help??

[Eddie G.]

Well depends what you're into. But here is what I recomend:
Any JLA TPB

JLA: The Nail

The Killing Joke

Batman Year One

The Sandman TPB's

The Alex Ross books like Superman: Peace on Earth, Batman: War on Crime, and

JLA: Liberty and Justice

Getting the Ultimate TPB's would be a great way to start out a marvel collection, and start you out on comics

You might also want to get some collections of older comics, like from the 50's, 60's, 70's

Most of Alan Moore's stuff would be great, but the Watchmen is a must have

Although I dislike Frank Miller, Dark Night Returns and Dare Devil: Born Again would be very good

[Jor-El]

If you want just the biggest and the best, here's what I'd go for:

Watchmen
Crisis on Infinite Earths
Kingdom Come
Dark Knight Returns
Man of Steel
Batman Year One
The Dini/Ross treasury-sized books
JLA: New World Order
Batman: The Long Halloween
Superman For All Seasons
Batman: Dark Victory
Daredevil: Yellow
Spider-Man: Blue
Marvels
Astro City: Life in the Big City

[Ed Liu]

Howdy,

I'd substitute Astro City: Confession for Life in the Big City, but I don't think you'll go wrong with any and all of the Astro City TPBs.

Since nobody's mentioned indies here yet, my list of essentials would have to include:

- Cerebus (at least the Cerebus, High Society, Church & State, and Jaka's Story TPBs). Imagine a 300 issue limited series which has taken more than 25 years to tell a single story in 6000 pages, and which finishes this February or March. The early issues are also absolutely hilarious.

- Bone (all of them, plus Rose and Stupid Stupid Rat Tails). Sort of a cross between Walt Kelly and J.R.R. Tolkien. The only creator who can pace a joke better than Bone's Jeff Smith is probably Dave Sim of Cerebus.

- Strangers in Paradise (all of them, but not Strangers in Paradise Too). A terrific indie comic about three lives and the twists and turns they take. Proved that a comic didn't need fantastic elements or spandex outfits or ludicrously endowed glamazons to succeed.

- Lots of people like Elfquest and DC has just started reprinting them. Can't say I've gotten into it, but it influenced a whole lot of other people.

Get anything you can by Will Eisner. I'm particularly fond of A Life Force and To the Heart of the Storm. There's a reason why the top comics awards are called the Eisners. Eisner rules.

I also say get the entire Alan Moore Swamp Thing run. Without it, comics wouldn't look like they do today. If nothing else, it broke the back of the Comics Code Authority, proving that a comic didn't need that stupid seal of approval to garner critical acclaim and top sales.

Gotta go old school and recommend at least the first volume of the Spider-Man Masterworks series. If you don't want to spend $50 on the hardcover (though you should ), you can get a softcover for about $15 from Barnes & Noble.

Last, pick up a copy of Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics. What little bit of modern comics scholarship we have is due to this text (and Eisner's Comics and Sequential Art).

All the links above will take you to Amazon.com's pages for the stuff I've mentioned. If you buy anything after clicking through those links, Toonzone gets a small kickback at no cost to you. The only exceptions are the links to Bone and Strangers in Paradise, which take you to their respective home pages where you can read samples and buy direct from the creators.

Have fun, and hope your wallet's pretty big.

-- Ed/Ace

[handOFfate]

thank you all. so far, some pretty good suggestions.

[Smaug]

my personal essentials include:

Alan Moores League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Neil Gaimans Sandman
Neil Gaimans Books of Magic
Preacher
Transmet.
Kingdom Come
JMS's Midnight Nation


I haven't got yet so can't comment on it's essentialness, but will be getting as I feel it's needed - Lone Wolf and Cub

[Stu]

I was more or less in the same boat as you, I thought most most comics had too much history to get into them, I think a lot of the characters are great, but only read a few monthlies, for example, I like X-Men and Batman, but read neither of them on a monthly basis. So, I'll do my recommendations based on the characters

Batman
Year One
Venom
The Killing Joke
Death In The Family
Prodigal
The Long Halloween (possibly the finest Batman tale of all time)
Dark Victory
The Batman Adventures: Volume 1+2

Spider-Man
The Essential Spider-Man (#1 is the best IMO, but they are all good)
The Death Of Gwen Stacey (you MUST buy this)
Venom
Venom Returns
Carnage
Return Of The Sinister Six
Ultimate Spider-Man (all of them, they kick ass)
Return Of The Green Goblin
Untold Tales Of Spider-Man
Any of the Paul Jenkins stuff you can get your hands on, the current Doc Ock arc is great

Daredevil
Yellow
Guardian Devil
Parts Of A Hole
Frank Miller Visionaries
Born Again
Any of the Bendis stuff

Thats about it for me, I've said these before, I'll more than likely say them again.

[Bubblegum Girl]

Young Justice: A League of Their Own
SQUEE's Wonderful Giant Book of Unspeakable Horrors
Lenore: Noogies
Lenore: Wedgies
Marvel Mangaverse Vols 1-4
Any Shonen Jump Books
Batman: The Long Halloween

[Shawn Hopkins]

I'm creating my own library and i'm going to start a comics and graphic novels section. I don't own any comics and I don't keep up with them so I don't know where to start. I want to collect the graphic novels that were the most shocking, popular, and/or influential, about 10-20 books. People have told me that Watchmen, Kingdom Come, and Dark Night Returns are musts, but I have no idea what else to get. Can somebody help??

In my opinion, you should just buy a couple that look interesting, find ones you like and go from there.

If you care what I think, however, I have some suggestions that will look impressive on a shelf:

Plastic Man Archives Vol. 1, featuring the great Jack Cole
Flaming Carrot TBP
Tick Omnibus
Johnny the Homocidal Maniac
Marvel Masterworks Fantastic Four Volume 1
Marvel Masterworks Amazing Spider-Man Volume 1
Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told
Akira Volume 1
The Worst of Boiled Angel (never read it or let anyone else open it, however, just study up on the story about how they tried to ban it in Florida)
The Essential Howard The Duck
Sandman: Preludes and Nocturne
The first Preacher trade
The first Bone trade, I think it's called Out of Boneville
Life of Groo
A Jack Kirby Treasury
Planetary
Understanding Comics
Sin City
Fun With Milk and Cheese
Kyle Baker books including Why I Hate Saturn, The Cowboy Wally Show, I Die at Midnight
Watchmen
Hate volume 1
Dan Clowe's Ghost World and Eightball
Tony Millionaires Sock Monkey
Collections of Little Annie Fannie and Cherry Poptart comics
A collection of Archie classics
Walt Kelly's Pogo books
A Hardback edition of Tales From The Crypt Reprints
Big books of American Splendor and R. Crumb reprints
Maus volumes 1 and 2
A collected edition of RAW
Jim Woodring's Frank
Superman from the 30s to the 70s
Spirit Archives by Will Eisner
Amphigorey by Edward Gorey
Some Love and Rockets collections
Collections of Carl Barks and Don Rosa's Scrooge McDuck and Donald Duck comics, alleged by many to be the best comic books of all time
Some Fireside collections of stuff like DC war stories. I think these date to the 70s and in good condition these would be jewels of any collection. I only have one and its worn
Some ratty Furry Freak Brothers comics to prove you're not pretentious after the last 10

Hope you have a lot of cash. I think these meet your "shocking, popular or influential criteria" pretty well, though this is by no mean a comprehensive list. I didn't list many superhero books because, honestly, they usually only influence other superhero books. That doesn't mean my collection isn't stuffed with them.

[handOFfate]

Thanks for the suggestions! I have plenty of cash but I don't want to spend unnecessary money buying graphic novels that turn out to be complete garbage. I thought it would be a good idea to get suggestions from people who know more about them than I do.
Just a question: At Barnes&Noble recently I saw that Marvel's printed the Essentials collections of Fantastic Four and The Avengers in color. I thought they were only in black and white. I wasn't going to bother with any before, but in color I would buy them. Besides Spider-Man, any other ones I should consider?

[Ed Liu]

Howdy,

Just a question: At Barnes&Noble recently I saw that Marvel's printed the Essentials collections of Fantastic Four and The Avengers in color. I thought they were only in black and white. I wasn't going to bother with any before, but in color I would buy them. Besides Spider-Man, any other ones I should consider?

That's actually the B&N softcover Marvel Masterworks series, not the Essentials. The Essentials books reprint far more material in return for cheap newsprint paper and black-and-white reproduction. The only thing worth pointing out is that the softcover reprints are based on the older Masterworks editions, which had a few color reproduction issues and some re-arranged pages (mostly pin-ups). I think B&N hasn't printed all the Volume 1 Masterworks Editions, and hasn't gone past Vol 1 for any of them, but I could be wrong about that.

In any event, I bought the softcover Spider-Man V1 and didn't notice anything horribly weird about them, so it's a good way to test the waters before you start splurging for the hardcovers. They sell pretty easily on eBay from what I've seen.

IMO, the most influential and surprising early stuff that Stan Lee wrote would be in Spider-Man and FF, in that order. I think you can probably live without the others, although others will probably feel differently. If they ever printed the Stan & Steve Ditko Dr. Strange Masterworks in softcover, I think that'd be worth getting, too.

-- Ed/Ace